


We've Been Here Before

by CommanderTeatime



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s03e22 All Good Things..., Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 14:25:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderTeatime/pseuds/CommanderTeatime
Summary: Clary invites Jace into her apartment. First steps are taken, then a dive.Love doesn't hesitate.





	We've Been Here Before

**Author's Note:**

> That last episode BROKE me. Holy shit. And I'm not writing malec for the first time post-episode! It's wild. I didn't cry during the wedding, I teared up, but like, that was it. Seeing Jace cry? Seeing Jace and Simon bond over losing Clary? And that ending? I bawled. I don't even really ship them. 
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy, and please know that just because the show is over, I am in no way done posting stuff for this show. I'll be here until my heart stops beating.

She leads him to her apartment, a tall brick brownstone in Brooklyn. 

He waits just past the door as Clary ushers a small, yippy white dog into her bedroom. She closes the door as the dog barks, then falls silent; she smiles at him. 

“Sorry, Biscuit isn’t used to strangers.” Clary, his Clary, takes his hand and leads him closer to the kitchen off the main room. 

It reminds him of the apartment she had shared with her mother. He wonders if she remembers that. If she remembers anything other than his name. Even just a fragment of it. He wonders if she might remember how he had killed that Circle member in front of her, if she might remember the stony blue lights of the Institute, or the feeling of a rune, warm under her skin, the power of the Angel singing to her senses.

Her fingers slip away from his as she steps towards the cabinet in her apartment and pulls out a mug. She sets it down on the counter and he wonders if she remembers how she used to make them tea when neither one of them could sleep.

This Clary is still his Clary. He sees it in the way she almost drops the second mug she takes out of the cabinet, and how she pours out too many tea bags from the box, sorting through all of them and dropping a third of them. She doesn’t pick them up, her hands shake as she tears open the small envelope of tea.

“Why do I know you, Jace?” She looks up from the tea bag, heaven in her green eyes. She looks back down, breaking the silence in Jace’s head, but not the fluttering in his chest. Her fingers ready the tea clumsily, almost putting the bags in before heating the water. Her eyes cut through him, expectant. “Well?”

“I, uh,” Jace’s tongue felt like a weight in his mouth. He feels sixteen, blubbering his way through an attempt to flirt with a pretty girl. He steels himself.

Clary places one of the mugs of water into the microwave and presses the buttons. Even the simplicity behind it all, the way she carries herself, it places him back, a year ago, watching her do the same thing in her silky, skimpy pajamas.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He says with a laugh, tears already in his eyes. 

She takes his hands, turns them over in hers. Her runeless arms, so pale. Jace can feel himself shaking, the pain of the past year shattering through his attempts to console the deepest part of himself. Her fingers touch his jaw first, and his body falls into the calming peace of familiarity. His eyes close for a long second as she cups his face, her gentle touch brings him to look at her and he does, like he has wanted to for so long.

“Try me.” Her voice is a soft whisper against the sound of a humming microwave.

_ I’m in love with you,  _ he wants to say, but it stays on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he brushes her red hair out of her face. She’s as soft as she is in dreams, but tangible, this time. So close, so real. “I’ve dreamed of this for a year, Clary.” His voice is shaking, possibly more than he is. “I… I’ve dreamed of this, and I’ve dreamed of what I would say.” 

It all falls short, falls silent. His hand traces carefully down her soft skin, from her face, to her shoulder, where her vision rune had been. He can remember how nervous he had been, shaking in himself. He had never been so careful drawing a rune before, so heartbroken to hear her anguish as it burned through her.

He blinks the memories away, the tears clustering the corners of his eyes. “Tell me this isn’t a dream.” 

She’s still, still enough that he has time to savour what he has before him. He wants to get lost in her. Jace thinks of calling Izzy, of telling her he’s done, that he’ll give it all up, his life, his runes, tomorrow’s patrol with Alec, just to have this.

“Jace.” Her hands move, breaking the spell. She moves him, her hands find his face, they brush his hair back, rub his tears away. “I… I don’t understand.” There’s a smile in her eyes, bright and hopeful, gleaming for an explanation, for a rescue in a sea of abandonment. Only she doesn’t remember who abandoned her.

“I love you, and I have loved you with every cell in my body.” Jace feels the tears beginning to let go again, the image of Clary blurs in front of him, the colors of her outfit swirl into a mess of chaotic beauty, into the woman he feels he has always loved. “My cells, they die, and new ones are born, and they love you… they love you even more.” The words ache as he says them, as her hands cup his face so carefully, so gently. 

One of the mugs shatters, water hits the floor and douses their feet. She doesn’t move from him, but instead moves closer. She smells like roses and sugar, her lips are soft against his, tasting of tears. Jace can’t tell if they’re his, or if she’s crying, too. 

They melt into it, pulling at one another, finding refuge.


End file.
